Sometimes, variable names just make fall-over good sense. Like using v for velocity, or d for distance, h for height, t for time, these are all fantastic. Other times, variable names just get grandfathered in for no good reason. Like, say, s for displacement (which is what, again, students ask? oh, how far it went, ok) or m for slope, which we all use because that’s how we learned it and byGodifitwasgoodenoughformeit’sgoodenoughforyouwhippersnappers bah! Get off my lawn!
But top of the list on bad variable names: x and y. Oh yes, my venerable variables, for teaching you are atrocious. Know why? Because nothing starts with x or y! X-ray machines? Xylophones? Xtra clean socks? Yellow submarines? Yearly physicals? Youtube videos? None of these are any good at all for trying to explain to someone why 3x+2y is neither 5x, 5y, nor simply 5, or why 3-x is not 2, or 2x, or any combination in between.
I know x and y have firmly entrenched themselves in the math psyche, and that’s likely to change about the same time you see a snowball fight in hell. But for the love, couldn’t the first introduction to letters as variables be something simple, like a and b? How much easier would it be to talk about apples and bananas than xylophones and yams, xeroxes and yachts, xenophobes and yurts, xenon atoms and yeomen?
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